The green tea hype!

It started a few weeks back with a couple of guys sipping the hyped 'green tea' in office instead of the regular dose of caffeine. And slowly, the fad spread to more than a dozen people.
Getting curious (as always :-)), I asked a couple of guys what's the thing about it, and what's so special about it.
The answers ranged from vague ones like 'Good for health' to technically-sounding ones like 'Gets rid of toxins'.

It is common knowledge, (in fact very common) thanks to Google, that walking or any other physical exercises are equally or in fact more detoxifying, de-stressing, rejuvenating than the daily cup of green tea.
When there are cheaper and more effective alternatives available, not sure why people turn to things which claim to do things easily and fail at it so badly.

Sure green tea companies, sauna belt manufacturing units, 'morning walker' etc will continue to make hay till we don't give up on these easier and costlier, yet ineffective alternatives.

So next time, instead of sipping on the green tea, just get up and get moving!

Xenon Switch ON, Brains Switch OFF!

These are the same lamps that blind you see each day at least a few times when on the road. These are the same morons who have brains to buy high ended sedans and SUVs but the same brains are switched OFF when they put on these lamps.

That's a very sad state, the headlamps even when on low-beam totally blind the oncoming driver for a few seconds.

Not sure, why some people need cops to start a drive to discipline them. Are we so hell bent on breaking rules? Even after getting quality education and claiming to be in cities like Oxford of the east, do we need to be taught how to be civilized on the road?

What's the "once in a lifetime" offer from Volkswagen?

This new Volkswagen commercial caught my attention recently, and I got very curious about WTH is the "Once in a lifetime" offer.

I kept wondering whether it's a big discount, or a B-O-G-O-F (Buy One Get One Free) offer, or if it's a limited edition model made by Volkswagen and the possibilities of my imagination were endless ;-)

Apparently, the punch line "once in a lifetime offer" does its job perfectly of attracting prospective customers to the showroom. As for yours truly, he was nowhere planning to buy one nor willing to spend time to visit the showroom just to find WTH was the offer.


Eventually, I watched the commercial once again (thanks to Youtube), did some Googling and got the answer.
If you see and understand the commercial, you'd realize that the Persian gentleman loves his car so much that he cannot bear any dirt, dust or dropping on his car. The gentleman eventually passes away, and comes back by 'travelling a lifetime' to take care of the car in the form of his grandson.
And voila - the "once in a lifetime offer" now makes some sense... you own it once in a lifetime but keep coming back to it time and again.

Personally, I liked the campaign because it does its job very well without hiring any of the expensive brand ambassadors. Don't believe me? Ask someone who is planning to buy a hatchback, and chances of him/her having called up Volkswagen are very high.

Take a bow Volkswagen for that punch line!

At least some blessing in disguise...

It was one of the worst mornings Pune had ever faced for quite some time. A bus driver, either out of some mental illness or wanting to vent out some frustration, went on a rampage playing a juggernaut behind the wheels, mowing down almost everyone and everything that came in his way.
The causalities being 9 precious lives lost, dozens seriously injured and not to forget the traffic chaos around the city areas where the incident happened, resulting in scores of people losing precious time of their which is a national loss.

Thankfully though, the driver was a local. One can just cannot imagine how the issue would have snowballed if the driver was from some other part of the country. Almost everyone knows of at least one political party which is hypocritically against non-locals progressing in this part of the country no matter their merit.
The non-local cab and bus drivers around Pune and Mumbai must be really thanking their stars that this incident was due to anyone amongst them. There could have been more rampages and possible riots too, to follow.

Sadly, a lot of individuals amongst us support the party and its agenda. I know I run the risk of triggering a controversy or probably losing some friends(?) but then if they can hold a strong opinion FOR that party, it is fair for me as well to hold a STRONG opinion AGAINST it!

Oh dear Pigeon!

Oh dear Pigeon,
we don't doubt your sense of vision,

If you can pardon my terrace,
we would just have a cleaner surface,

I can give you water in summer,
And can occasionally satiate your hunger,

Please understand our pain,
next time on, shit in some drain!




Pigeons are frequent visitors to our terrace. Earlier they used to pick on the basil leaves, and now that we have moved the basil plant to a different place, they still frequent in search of I don't know what!
Their level of alertness can put the security guards to shame, and they fly away even at our slightest movement from this side of the glass doors.

Engineering habits die hard!

Been a little less than a decade since I graduated as a Bachelor of Engineering (actually, I feel old when I make that statement :-)). 
Coming to the point, some habits which got cultivated during those days out of either tight schedule or lackadaisical attitude during the beginning of semesters still have themselves clinged to me. 


There are at least a couple of them which I can relate to...
Firstly, procrastinating things right till the time either it's too late or till it's right there on the edge of the cliff. I still do not submit my reimbursement proofs or don't pay my utility bills till it's the last day or even a day later :P. 
Probably, it goes well with the habit of having to submit assignments on the last day during semesters. I remember we were so occupied during the whole semester with either assignments or fun, that the only time to study was during the 15-21 days before the semester actually commenced.


Secondly, the habit of staying awake late nights - No engineer true to his salt would say he/she hasn't stayed up late nights during the 4 years :-) 
Having just killed time with friends or having professors kill us over assignments and submissions during the whole semester, there was no other option but to burn the midnight oil.
I can still never ever get up early, and would hate it really if someone makes me get up before the sun is at 30 degrees to the horizon! On the other hand, I can stay awake the whole night and beat someone hands down at that :-) (wow, what a proud feeling!) :P


And then of course there are a host of other good habits that engineering has helped inculcate too, will keep them for another post.


Cheers to the habits and folks with whom I spent some of the best years of my life!

Some folks are so very naturally talented...

Happened to participate in a skit at our company's quarterly meet. Each team takes up the responsibility to present the meet every quarter in their own humorous way, and this time it was ours.
I have never been much into performing arts and kind. Acting somehow never comes to me naturally, though each one of us happens to 'act' in some way or other each day :)


And then there were a couple of naturally talented guys in our team, who could act up as SRK, Sanjay Dutt and Rajnikanth so very gracefully. As for yours truly, he acted as Amitabh Bacchan or should I say made an sloppy attempt at acting and delivering dialogues like the legend.


But anyway, it was fun, and I strongly believe such events at workplace just helps you de-stress and unwind from the routine, get to know people around better, hones creativity and yes helps you know how bad you are at performing arts :=)

Family Geography! (right, not History)

As I was thinking about the locations where my immediate family members are currently at, something stuck my thoughts...
Currently, am in Pune and considering that as the reference point,
1) My parents are in Mumbai - North of  Pune.
2) My better half is in Bankok - East of Pune.
3) My elder brother and his family are in the US - West of Pune.


Interesting isn't it, how life at times places us away from our family members at geographically dispersed locations :)

H-O-P-E

I  HOPE the weekend doesn't end so soon,
I  HOPE the Sun doesn't take over the Moon,

I  HOPE I achieve my dream some day,
I  HOPE to do it, come what may,

I  HOPE I keep writing this,
I  HOPE this blog doesn't end up as "Ignorance is bliss" :-)

Ok, on a serious note...
I am not at all a movie buff, but on some very strong recommendations over and over again, saw this movie -'The Shawshank Redemption' a few weeks back. It shows a man's determination, courage, mental acumen and most importantly HOPE to get himself out of a sentence he's serving because of circumstantial evidences going against him.

I would say this is a MUST WATCH movie for anyone and everyone. Apart from being truly entertaining in its script, it throws around some very good dialogues, has some very good actors (Morgan Freeman being my favorite in the movie) and also carries a message.

Do watch it when you get a chance, sure the movie would keep you clinged right till the end.

I HOPE you really do watch the movie, and this space again :-)

"Til Gul ghya goad-goad bola..."

One festival, yet many names and celebrated on the 14th day of the first month of the English calendar.

Add caption

Here's wishing all my readers a Happy Sakrant !!

Til-Gul ghya goad goad bola...

(Please help yourself with as many as you would like :=))

Who would teach them anyway?

Ever paused for a moment to think who would actually teach mannerisms to the blue-collared folks around?  We went to school, finished graduation,even attended courses for developing soft skills and grooming sessions, but what about these 'under privileged' ones?


My personal opinion is that since these folks are at the lower end of the social strata, they look up to the ones above them to learn mannerisms, civic sense, kindness and politeness among a lot of other things. Hence, I strongly believe that we should be gentle and treat these people with respect and politeness.
It's so very often that we see so called 'white-collared' folks talk to such people in a rude tone, ignore them and even abuse them. This is not only true with such 'elite' adults but even their kids, which is just awful for educated kids of educated parents!


If this continues, how would that section of the society which includes janitors, security guards, drivers, toll collection agents and so on that we see in our everyday life ever improve in a developing country like ours? Would it be fair for us to expect them to improve their behavior when we are ourselves tainted?


So, the next time we talk to such folks let us make sure we are gentle and polite enough. As they say, 2 words of kindness wouldn't surely do any harm to anyone. That is the least amount of social responsibility we can  ever carry out.

Tapping creativity by panning

While I was on the streets of Bangkok a few days back, I really wanted to take some different kinda snaps instead of the regular freezed ones.


Going back to the hotel room, I quickly Googled for the 'Panning' technique to capture subjects which are in motion and give the image a feel of the subject's movement.


The picture besides was taken using the panning technique in which you should be on lower shutter speeds, focus on the subject and then move your camera in the direction of the subject just as you hit the capture button. 
This way, your subject (the person and the bike in my picture) is in focus whereas the background gives a feel of the movement that your subject is making.


Am sure there could be many more creative ideas once you get a hang of this technique.

A developer's life is NOT just about CODING

A developer's life is not just about writing good code and communicating well with stakeholders. It's also about knowing other tasks which are not really meant or defined for a developer if you read the 'Job description' documented by the company.


These could be anything from configuring Oracle installations, mounting file-systems on a Unix box, writing small pieces of code to automate mundane tasks, fixing something that is wrong with Continuous Integration servers and the list goes on. 
I also know a few developers around who would simply shun from such kind of jobs because they think it's not a part of their role as defined by the company. 


However, if one thinks about it wisely, the advantages of running such odd jobs once in a while are manifold. I will list below the advantages I see out of them...

1. They hone your R&D skills on a platform which you have probably never seen earlier.
2. You are allowed to make mistakes just because you are learning and everyone knows that you are trying your hand at an otherwise specialized job.
3. You get to talk stuff at stand-ups which could be totally new to others, and hence impressive of you :)
4. In the process of searching for solutions, you learn better use of Google keywords.
5. Once you regularly showcase your skills in these odd directions (after having proved your developer acumen of course), people look forward to you as a techie and logical guy, and not just yet another developer around the corner.
6. You get to work with really low level basics and lingos which you might have never heard or used after your graduation.

Hope this makes sense to my developer audience.

Mom, why do they switch off aircraft cabin lights during take off and landing?

I was on a flight last week, and as it goes with my inquisitive nature about anything on wheels, I kept wondering about a lot of things around me like how does the movement of wings affect the flight, why do flight attendants request passengers to pull up the window shutters, why are the cabin lights switched off during take off and landing.


Once home, I googled it up and found the answers.


As for the cabin lights being switched off, from some amount of reading around it's apparent that those are done because emergency situations are more likely to occur during landing and take off.
In case the worst happens, they want our eyes to be already adjusted to the darkness around us (on a night flight) instead of passengers trying to pave their way through pitch darkness that surrounds ones eyes if there is a sudden transition of the intensity of light.


Found it to be one of the noble precautions that the aviation industry takes to give us safer yet comfortable in-flight experience...


I will try to write about answers to my other inquisitive thoughts about an aircraft in some other post.

After a days work...

... No, I would not blabber about anything. This is just a post tell you guys (and also Google search engine :-) ), that I have renamed the blog to something which is more relevant.
I could not do much justice to the older name ('growwithjava'), because AfterADaysWork, I just could not find the courage and enthusiasm to again go back to write or talk about java or any technology, which I anyway TRY to DO the whole day.

This new name gives me mental flexibility to write about anything and everything after a days work minus the embarrassment of having to write under a different 'mask' :-)

Hope I continue to enjoy writing this for the small number of adhoc visitors I have each day... and hope they enjoy reading as well... Cheers!

Stable and stylish tuk-tuks!

I was in Bangkok (thanks to wifey and her company :-) ), and was fascinated by these small public carriers on the road. They are colorful, play loud rock music, are decorated right from the hood to the silencer to the wheels, have cool looking drivers, they sport silencers whose sound are a treat to a "thump" lover's ears.

More importantly, apart from their visual appeal, what I liked about them is that they seem to be lot more stable given their larger wheelbase and lower height than the desi auto-rickshaws. Sure, they seem to have put some good thought into the stability of these 3-wheeled 'rockets' on Bangkok roads.

Here are a few pictures, hope you enjoy them...

Telecommuting - Boon or bane?

The place where I am currently employed has overshot its capacity, and they plan to shift a few teams to another location which is inconvenient for most of the folks.
I wonder why management doesn't think of telecommuting as an option for us. The advantages are manifold ranging from increased employee satisfaction to better employee retention to monetary savings for the company.

The one about savings could be a big one am sure, considering the cost involved in setting up IT infrastructure, the cubicles, sundry facilities and so on. Yet, there are no visible talks of allowing folks to work from home. Of course everyone understands that being in a developing country that we are, there could be issues with logistics like frequent power failure, poor internet connectivity etc. but the onus of getting this in place can lie with the employee, failing which he/she can be made to lose this privilege.

Given the boon surrounding this arrangement, I really dunno why companies especially in India are hesitant to let people work from home. Just like we start new processes like Scrum, automating test cases, setting up CI servers and what not in software development, why can't we just kick-start and try this one as well on a pilot project?

Everyone likes to be clicked, even non living objects

After a 15-20 minutes of photo session with a lot of angles, intensity of flash, composition of the clips, finally zeroed down on one good click.
(f/7.1, 1/180, 200)